[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 61 (Thursday, May 14, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E860]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    INTRODUCTION OF BIG PINEY PUBLIC SALE ACT MINERAL ESTATE RELIEF

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                           HON. BARBARA CUBIN

                               of wyoming

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 14, 1998

  Mrs. CUBIN. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing legislation which 
opens to federal oil and gas leasing certain parcels that have 
prospective value for oil and gas development. This bill will correct 
an error made by the BLM in leasing parcels of land near Big Piney, 
Wyoming which were subject to the 1964 Public Land Sale Act's statutory 
closure of the mineral estate to leasing. BLM has agreed that there is 
no current reason for the closure to continue and believes that the 
holder of the lease should be allowed to move forward with development.
  The lands affected by this provision were sold at auction under the 
1964 Act that required the mineral estate to be reserved to the United 
States in the patent to the high bidder. When BLM classified the lands 
for sale, BLM and the USGS recognized that the lands were ``valuable 
for oil, gas and coal''.
  That 1964 Sale Act provided that the reserved federal minerals would 
be closed to mineral leasing, apparently because the lands were 
expected to be improved as part of expected local community growth 
after the sale and patenting of the surface.
  The lands here remain grazing lands that are currently of the same 
type that are under multiple use for grazing and oil and gas 
exploration and development throughout southwestern Wyoming.
  Air quality, wildlife and other public resource concerns can and will 
be addressed and protected through federal lease stipulations, just as 
was and is done for all the federal acreage currently under lease 
throughout the Big Piney-Labarge area, including one of these parcels 
that was already mistakenly leased by BLM.
  I ask my colleagues to support me in this effort to correct the error 
by BLM and to further oil and gas development in southwestern Wyoming. 
Natural gas is the fuel of choice for many Americans today, and this 
bill would in a very small way contribute to our nation's energy needs 
by allowing prospectively valuable federal mineral rights to be 
competitively auctioned and to recognize the validity of an 
improvidently issued lease.

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